Creative musings in bright colors

Posts tagged ‘L’oreal’

I love this mani. I have been meaning to make a watermable with glitter so that it looks variegated (instead of just swoopy lines, to get some irregularity) and this worked! It kinda looks like the surface of Jupiter to me, if Jupiter was purple and the red spot was also purple (my middle finger tip).

I’m not going to lie, the sparkly stripe down the middle of my ring finger was…augmented…with extra polish. There was already some glitter there, but I wanted MORE. It was so shiny!

In retrospect, I think these also look a bit like geode nails? People were obsessed with those for a while, and the craze somewhat seems to have died down. I never did paint my own geode nails, and I should honestly do that sometime soon! The ones others have done a pretty :-D. Hope you enjoyed these!

Hand-painted floral gradient time…happy Spring! It certainly feels like it here, we had a truly impressive lightening storm followed by monsoon-level rain. I spent a large portion of my evening just staring out the window in a dark room!

Anyway, it is also new polish time! This is three coats of Little Oysters by Ethereal Lacquer. This was a limited time buy (from one of the custom groups I am a part of) and I love it! I am actually wearing it (again) as I write this. The polish itself is a bit thick, however it is very opaque and I probably could have gotten away with two coats! It is a greyed-out pastel lilac with copious pink shimmer that shifts to yellow-gold at sharp angles. It looks grey, purple, pink, and sometimes yellow.

I decided I wanted to replicate some of the cool designs I had seen online with this particular stamp, but using purple rather than a multi-color gradient. In retrospect it would have been much easier to actually do a gradient, rather than hand-painting each layer of petals directly on the stamper head! But the end result is pretty cool.

Flowers! I feel like it has been a while since I posted something floral. Of course, it is the beginning of March so I figured it would be warm-ish out. I was wrong. It snowed yesterday and is likely to snow again on Sunday. Oh well! Flowers anyway :-p

I wanted to make a flowers-fanning-out-in-purple appearance, but the base I used has copious yellow/pink shimmer (I forgot to post the swatch before the nail art, oops!) so it kinda looks yellow-to-purple. I like it anyway but it has a very different flavor!

Honestly, I was aiming for a completely different manicure when I started this, but my gradient came out all wrong so I ended up with this instead!

I was going for a light orange-orange-red-purple style, and as you can see it is 95% orange an 5% red with no purple at all! I tried. I really did. In retrospect, I should have known it wasn’t going to work since the purple I was trying to use is currently a dried up blobby mess. Live and learn!

I ended up deciding that all gradients (as long as the colors aren’t terrible and need to be flat-out started over) look good with some geometric patterns. I wanted something a bit more delicate so I went with this design, and of course added colors to the dots and diamonds. I think this is the third time I have done this same thing with different colors.

That’s all for today! There is a similar gradient floating around on the blog too, since I was on night float and thus was able to do slightly different nails (and keep this poor blog running)! Hope you enjoy!

This mani stirs some mixed feelings: on the one hand, it is pretty cool looking! On the other hand, the gradient isn’t what I was going for and the lines, as the are freehanded, are not even close to perfect.

I was inspired by @aissandra. Somehow, despite her nails being shorter than mine, she managed to get more gradient going! I have to wonder if that is because she was using higher quality or more opaque polish. I happen to know that the neon purple I tried to use is a dried up mess and need to be thinned dramatically or thrown out!

The real moral is that I need a better neon pastel (wow) orange, and despite having a truly staggering number of purple polishes, I need something that is a bright indigo-leaning creme! In case the swatching extravaganza earlier this year didn’t clue anyone in, I own far too many jewel tone purple metallics. Specifically. Anyway.

Is this really pastiche? Not so much. A lot of my nail art apes that of other artists that I’ve seen and liked…this was sort of a general “I like things that are somewhat pastel and look like watercolor and flowers” and I tried to make it happen!

It turns out, of course, that I also like things that glitter. The end result of this mani was actually pretty fun, but I just kept adding more things! Lines and more lines and dots…In the end I wish I had used a lighter silver holo base for my accent nail, but I love the pink shine to Rosewater!

Neon colors are the BEST when I don’t have any interviews! This was inspired by a pinterest pin, but I couldn’t find the original nail artist so you’ll just have to trust me that this is a bit more neon and less pastel, but otherwise close :-p

Two brightly colored manis in one week? Yes please! This the focus of this mani is the stripes I figured it fit well for today. It was painted last Fall (which tells you guys how long I’ve been saving some of these manis).

At some point I need to create a folder of ‘colors that work well together that you’d never guess but should absolutely combine’ because without the inspiration for this mani, I would never have thrown coral with neon green and teal! But it works 🙂

She what I meant by how I have enough flower manis? But they are so pretty!

Anyway, this mani harkens back to mid-2017 when I briefly had oval nails. That was mostly because the sides of my nails had cracked on 3 fingers, but I kinda hated it! I know a lot of nail artists (and really just people with nails in general) who can pull off and look good with oval nails, but I don’t think I’m one of them!

The pretty trellis design was inspired by @mvargas_nails. I am glad I went with a pastel blue base, it pops nicely with both the lines and the flowers! I am also quite proud that I freehanded these lines (although tbh you can kinda tell).

You guys, I just had a DAY (but Eva, it’s only 3pm! Yes but I woke up at 5:30, so it’s been a whole day and I am over it). Which means that today’s post will be short and sweet because I mostly want to bang my head into a wall. Repeatedly. And this mani? Not helping.

The base here is three coats of Delaney by Zoya. In the bottle this has a bit of a duochrome/multichrome finish, but that did not translate to the nail (which was pretty much as expected). This is, I think, the last of my haul from winning the Nail Art Canada holiday challenge…and of all the Zoya polishes I received, this is the one I was least excited about. So it went lest. This polish is basically a muted dull metallic purple, and I already have Zoya Gadia, which is amazing. So yah, this is three thin coats, and it looks fine but I have prettier version of this in my stash already.

For the design, I ended up doing a purple-to-white lace stamping gradient, getting bored, and adding a metric ton of dots! I think I went overboard I really need to stop trying to do lace gradients over purple, this is probably the third time I have tried something like this, and to date I have liked none of them!

And that’s all for today! I know it isn’t great, but I’m working off my backlog. This one and the next post are just not my favorites, but then it should get good again (I tend to edit the photos in waves of things-I-love and things-I-dislike, and we are in a dislike wave, Monday’s post was the end of a love wave). Ok. Too much train of thought. Enjoy!

Time to see the nail art that I did over all those weird swatch tests from the last few weeks! This is from my purple cremes day.

I decided to start by mashing together all 5 purples (basically sponged them on randomly on each nail). After that was done, I stamped over the purple mash with a blobbed combo of three colors (one of which was a different lighter purple), and then stamped on top of that with a metallic purple.

Basically, I painted them a single purple, sponged on 4 other purples, stamped cobblestones with 3 purples, and topped with a metallic purple. So very purple! I do like that the cobblestones at least showed up!

Why oh why do I have so many nude polishes? I will end up doing three, yes THREE comparison posts with nudes (pastel nudes, which are up today, pinky nudes, and neutral nudes, both of which will be co-posted on Wednesday). Anyway, on to the “pastel” nudes!

These are the lightest nudes in my collection, which is to say pale creme colored polishes. I have, today, two cremes, one jelly, one shimmer, and one holo. Three of them ended up being identical and I am certainly parting with one! The others I will keep, just because nudes are darn useful (especially given that I start working in the hospital full-time in June).

Prospect Park Bloom took three thick coats and was STILL not completely opaque. It also basically didn’t dry. It was 99 cents, which was why I bought it initially, but I think I’m going to let it go! Cherish stands out because it is both darker and filled with holo shards. I Nude It has very very subtle shimmer that puts it in a hair darker than Boho Babe and Prosecco, which are to my eye complete dupes. I like the brush that L’oreal uses much better than the giant OPI brush, but Prosecco has a bit more polish than Boho, and both work fine.

I decided to go with an art deco pattern, since my nails are STILL pointy-shaped and I really only like geometric things on pointy nails. The stamp is from BP plate L054, the source of most of my geometric patterns! I then colored bits of the design in gold (after stamping, I really should have colored in the design on the stamper head, but this was faster), and added some black and gold dots. I was debating throwing in a fourth color (likely red) but decided to leave it as-is. The dots really helped! For once my “if it doesn’t look completed, add dots” worked 🙂

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! And maybe this was useful (basically, you can pay $5 for L’oreal that is the same color and ease of use as a $10 OPI). Also sorry this post is late…but I technically made it up before midnight so Monday!!

Deep Purple Cremes: How are “deep” purple cremes different from “dark” purple cremes? I don’t know, Maybe the other post is more medium purples? Either way, these are the other purple cremes that I own, which to me seemed like a different grouping. Really, these are the blue-leaning dark purples and Monday had the red-leaning purples.

Three of the 5 polishes were two coats, except Wine-y and Paparazzi, which were three. Wine-y and Monica are almost dupes, if you ignore the fact that Monica has a much much better formula! None of the others are remotely similar, other than being purple. Paprazzi is more of a blurple anyway! I think it is safe to part with Wine-y.

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Dark Purple Holos: I was hoping that most of these would look like each other and I would be left with 2-3 polishes total, but they are all so different! Ugh. And yet, so pretty.

For density, Effect and Zoe both took three coats, the others were all opaque at two. In terms of the dark scattered holos, Effect is darker than Zoe, and Zoe has visible shards rather than just glitters, with the addition of some really pretty shimmer. I think I need to keep both! For the linear purple holos, Crown is more of a shimmer than a holo, but leans more blue than the others and has absolutely perfect application, Berry remains a freaking rainbow (still one of the polishes that I gasp at when I put it on) but has actually turned more red since I got it? I still love it. Vallis is prettier and more holo than I remember but I still hate the bottle shape with its long pointy top! I was hoping to part with Vallis but it is such an interesting unique red-purple holo shade that I think I need to keep it and actually use it…eventually.

I haven’t done water marbling in a while, and I figured it was time! Looking at these photos, I wish I had picked a few different colors, but all said and done this at least isn’t awful (I know, high praise) :-p

I used another new polish for the base, a shimmer silver called Ornament to Be Together by OPI. Honestly, while I enjoy puns in names as much as the next nerd, OPI is making their names a little too punny and a little too long. Oy. Anyway, it took three coats of Ornament to Be Together to get to this level of coverage, and I honestly still have some visible nail line. That said, in addition to the fine silver glitter that makes up this polish there are actual holo shimmers, which is a first that I’ve seen from OPI! It doesn’t hold a candle to most indie polishes, but still. Not bad in terms of glitter payoff (but still too thin for my nail line).

Since the silver wasn’t super opaque, and one of my other OPI polishes appeared to be a jelly, I decided to try and make a jelly-based water marble where the silver shined through at least the red. It worked, but the red was so thin that the other colors pushed it out! So the shimmery red is just a red jelly with the silver shimmer shining through.

My strongest takeaway from this is that I totally need to try a full-jelly water marble over glitter at some point. I know my Zoya jellies will marble, but I tried my others and they don’t speed at all, so I would be suck with pink, red, purple, and blue, which is not the best combo. Anyone know of a yellow jelly that marbles?

YOU GUYS. This polish is amazing. And I quite like the design I ended up with as well! I am drooling over my own photos. This is rare.

The polish here is called Grey Opal by Polished for Days. It is yet another excellent example of why everyone should join the Polish Pickup Pack! Grey Opal covered perfectly in two thin coats, and control of the polish was excellent. Honestly, I have been painting my nails for years and even so I almost always need to clean around my cuticles with acetone after I am done applying my base color. With this polish, I had no need…it went exactly and ONLY where I wanted it to go! I am impressed.

The polish has a grey jelly base with lots of silver shards, coral shifting flakies, and teal shifting flakies. It is very fun to look at, between the orange and the teal and the glitter! It somehow manages to be both fun and elegant. I loved this polish so much I ended up checking out the Polished for Days store and OMG it is amazing. I want most of it (many of the polishes seem to have as much depth to them as this one, which is just incredible) and I officially have a new indie polish crush for jelly/flakie/shard combos!

Anyway, I ended up making floral stamping decals using a coral polish that more or less matched the pink-orange shade of the flakies, and just going with it. I did paint in some green leaves, but they barely ever made it onto the nail (they were all off the edge, oops)! I want to say this is fitting because yesterday was the first day of spring…but it is 32 degrees out and snowing!

Sorry this post is going up late, I didn’t bring my laptop on my vacation last week so I only got around to editing this today! Oops 😀

That said, this really is not my best work! I had a decent idea of what I wanted going in, but I was impatient and the whole thing fell apart a bit. The design was created using stickers from the Born Pretty Store that I was sent to review. They work well, but there was a bit of a learning curve! Also I need a holo top coat. Trying to use this odd flakie one I have is just sad.

I love this polish, but I really am not enjoying the design I put over it! I feel like that has been happening more frequently

The base color here is the last of my new F.U.N. Lacquer polishes. This is three thin coats of Cheers to the Holidays (H), but the last coat really wasn’t necessary. The polish is a purple multichrome that shifts to bright pink, but has a bright blue shimmery flash…AND holo glitters AND gold sparkle that of course turns red and purple. Wow. This polish looked fantastically different in different lights.

For the design, I tried to stamp with black but it didn’t show up…but that is why my pointer and middle finger look like they have more depth to them. I ended up stamping in pink and then using rose gold to color in little bits of the stamp, hoping it would pick up the rose gold in Cheers, but that didn’t happen.

I have been sitting on this mani for months, but I figured fall was a good time to post it! I loved doing this one, but the laces took forever, so that I ran out of time to add enough top coat to smooth everything out. So, I am sorry for the slightly uneven finish!

The design was inspired by @banicured_ although her’s were all in white. The laces stand out more against the white, but there is nothing like a jewel-toned ombre to make me happy! Also, I wanted to see how OPI’s Stay Off the Lawn stacked up against some of my other darker colors.

It makes me a little sad how infrequently I can get away with doing manicures that show even a bit of my naked nail. I wear too much blue (and green, and even certain pinks) and my poor nails look like splatter paintings. I had to wait until they cleared up just to do this!

I love painting nails inspired by children’s books…and I’ve been wanting to try The Rainbow Fish for a while! I just haven’t had the time (until now).

The inspiration came from Adventures in Acetone, although I decided to stay true to the book and use only creme polishes for the scales other than the rainbow silver scales. I do wish, in retrospect, that I had used a lighter pink (even though I don’t actually have a good one)!

The story is about the joy that one person can get from sharing. Its quite a nice message! It also was one of my favorite books growing up (not that I wanted to be taught to share with my sisters) but because the shiny fish scales were just so pretty. This mani is a bit darker than I imagine the fish being, but still pretty and suitably colorful! Who wants to play with silver holo? 🙂

These took FOREVER to paint because I had to do one scale at a time, and couldn’t put two wet dots next to each other or they’d run! I still love the end result though 😀 Hope you enjoyed! It looks like I wasn’t the only one to do Rainbow Fish this year!

I feel like a LOT of my recent manis have involved flowers, so picking something for the “flowers” prompt in the 31 Day Challenge was both easy and exasperating. That said, this mani is interesting to me, because I like the concept but I hate the polish that I was trying to model! Oops. Polishes that take more than three coats to be opaque are evil.

The design was inspired by this pin, which has no watermark at all so I have no idea who’s nails those are! But it is pretty so I wanted to try it.

I got a pink glittery polish as a gift, and I wanted to test it out. On my pointer and pinky is 4 (!!!) somewhat thick coats of Gold ‘n Roses by Sinful Colors. I don’t know if this polish is meant to be a topper or not, but it is NOT opaque enough to be worth wearing on its own. The polish is primarily lots of pink shimmer/tiny glitter with larder silver shards. The color isn’t bad, but it took soo many coats that when I added top coat the whole darn thing shrunk! My free edges have their own personal angles now, distinct from the shape of the polish on the rest of the nail.

My thumb has two coats of a matched base color with two coats of Gold n’ Roses overtop, and honestly it looks very similar to the fingers with just Gold n’ Roses…so maybe that is how it should be worn? Seems like a lot of work for a mediocre polish! Also, the polish is rose gold and silver, there is no “gold” in it at all despite the name!

I half wish that I painted over the shimmery pink sometime while I wore this to make it more interesting, or added holo topcoat. Alternatively, I bet this would have been stunning with ILNP Juliette! I don’t need any more rose gold polishes :-p. Hope you enjoyed!

This might be the worst mani I’ve done in recent history. Like, total epic and utter fail. I am embarrassed to post this but let it stand as a lesson: Do Not Pair Nude and Awkward Golds!!!!

I couldn’t even bear to wear this particular mani for 24 hours they were soo terrible. Ugh. Once I had done one hand with the pale gold/silvery polish I hated it so much I covered the other hand with a more yellow-toned gold. It too looked awful (although to me maybe sightly less terrible).

Mistakes I made here: trying (again) to use metallic polish over tape. It never comes off correctly. Trying to use a soft gold color over a pink-based nude (a rose gold would have worked, or a yellow-based nude).

Turns out the art I was trying to replicate by Marine Loves Polish was done with nail tattoos Go figure. Win some, lose some! On a good note, the 31 Day Challenge begins on Friday! Stay tuned for some of my recent BEST work 😀